On the the fifty-year anniversary of the creation of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s
»Gesang der Jünglinge,« ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics
will take the occasion to think aloud about the role of the human voice in today’s
digital context via commissioned works, concerts, and discussions. Stockhausen’s
epochal work hereby serves as an important stimulus to present the latest developments
in digitally supported or even digitally produced vocal music. After the pioneering
works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti,
Luigi Nono, Dieter Schnebel, and Pierre Henry, vocal music took on greater significance
in contemporary composing and achieved true heights in acoustic art, which did
not go unnoticed by audiences.

Prominent figures from the realm of vocals will make
guest appearances at ZKM
Between music theater, installation, and loudspeaker music, great attention
is dedicated to the human voice, »vox humana,« in the medial context.
The synthesizing of this initial and most bodily of all instruments is now,
as before, a great challenge in contemporary media art. We have been fortunate
in attaining high quality interpreters for the festival. Along with the award-winning
composer and vocalist in extreme registers, Jennifer Walshe, also taking part
are the prominent »Maulwerker « from Berlin and the opera and concert
soloist Dunja Vejzovic (in »ICHNICHTICH « for voice, percussion,
and accordion by Jens Paulus and Philipp Noll). The highlight will be a concert
by Freiburg’s Experimentalstudios für akustische Kunst e. V. in a
ZKM atrium with a performance of Luigi Nono’s »Guai ai gelidi mostri«
based on the text by Massimo Cacciari, and pictures by Emilio Vedova (1983),
with largely the same line-up as the première. In cooperation with the
Experimentalstudio für Akustische Kunst e.V. FreiburgProgramThu 18 May2006
8 p.m. ZKM_Cube admission € 8 / 5dub/ber/wie
»Tongues of Fire« by Trevor Wishart
»Impuls« by Damon Lee (UA)
»dub/ber/wie« by Jennifer Walshe and Bernhard Gál (UA)Fri
19 May 2006